Emiliano Granada As Annecy rounds the final bend on its biggest edition to date, with a tantalizing promise of a brighter future for animation in much of Europe, Marjolaine Perreten’s 29-minute film “Pebble Hill” (“La Colline aux cailloux”), part of its TV Films competition, has been one of the multiple gems to come out of it.
Minimalist in design, a trademark of the young Swiss filmmaker’s unique style, the animation, which has already won an award at Hamburg’s Mo & Friese Kinder Kurzfilm Festival, is charming and tender, the 29-minute film, produced by renowned Swiss production company Nadasdy Film in Geneva, a producer on “No Dogs or Italians Allowed,” and France’s Les Films du Nord, tells the story of a family of shrews that after loosing their home due to the breaking of an upstream dam embark on a journey alongside an old shrew to find the Pebble Hill.
Perreten’s previous short film “Last Day of Autumn” was screened at the Berlinale in 2019, With this one she proves to have a quite singular voice that through quirky comedy and endearing characters achieve sincere emotion.
Variety interviewed Perreten as her short film bowed at Annecy Right from the get-go you use sound design in such a sensorial and tactile way and take such advantage of the world building tool that it i.
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